I’ve finally found it.

I’ve been on a life-long quest to find restaurant-quality red and green chile sauces for tacos, enchiladas and all manner of Mexican food delights.

Like so many things in life, this recipe discovery came unexpectedly while I was chasing another recipe (for tamales).

As you know if you read Blue Cayenne, my friend Sarah and I have been partying with our own two-person tamaladas for several years. A class at our local Costa Mesa Sur La Table gave us the self-confidence to believe we could actually succeed as tamaleras. But, alas, while the tamale was a success the sauce was a challenge.

For this season’s tamalada, I picked up a little book titled Tamales 101 by Alice Guadalupe Tapp. (This book is available at your local bookstore or on Amazon here.) The book is full of interesting variations on tamales from traditional green chile and cheese ones to grilled jalapeno corundas made with a spicy jalapeno and tomato masa and no filling at all.

Tucked into the beginning of the little book there is a section on sauces and that is where I found these two wonderful sauces: Salsa Verde Sauce and Red Pork Chile Sauce (with no pork in the ingredients). They are thick and flavorful and perfect to sauce your next Mexican dishes.

Here is the recipe for the Salsa Verde as I prepared it in my kitchen. The recipe is easy. The magic in this sauce seems to be getting the right proportions of ingredients. I will post the red sauce recipe in another post.